I genuinely don’t want to start this off on a pessimistic note but let’s face the facts: given the law of averages, most creative output is not very good. This goes especially for music, being that it is a medium which doesn’t require a ton of collaboration or even time to simply produce “a song”. In an era where it’s most profitable for artists to simply clog the Spotify charts and siphon streams off of background listeners, there’s more music than ever which would have been left on the cutting room floor when CDs/VHS/Vinyl were the popular mode of music delivery. Many artists have fallen back on popular sounds which mean that their prodigious output is usually not offensive to the ear, there’s just nothing memorable about the beat, the lyrics, the production, what have you. I like to think that that’s the value my mixes can provide, a collection of music mashed together by a listener who has a perspective and a point of view, and presented in an order that hopefully reveals a semi-coherent flow.
A sudden encounter with chronic insomnia has kept this playlist on ice for months, as I hardly had the energy for daily tasks, let alone to listen, curate, and write up music. The huge track list is a symptom of the long gestation period, and instead of trying to thread together an essay, I will just deliver my notes as stray observations in bullet point form. Oh well.
- EDITOR’S NOTE!!! Apparently, Azealia Banks’ New Bottega does not appear on Spotify or Apple Music!! It’s an excellent song, and the 4th on this playlist. Check it out here.
Look, I like her music, but I can understand keeping some of it off Spotify. She’s a whole super villain. Do yourself a favor and do not google her opinion on anything, because it might give you brain damage.
- PinkPantheress is undeniably the MVP of this playlist. The UK-based DJ’s timid vocals always sound good over a drum n bass production, resulting in killer versatility. Her signature shrinking violet persona can result in quiet bangers (“was I ever good enough?”) like Boy’s A Liar and the bass boosted Skrillex track Way Back. But she can also go big with it, as proven on the machine drum driven banger Take Me Home
PinkPantheress is a harbinger of good things to come for the next generation of musicians
- DRAM – known originally as DRAM, then Big Baby Dram, then Shelley (his government name) made waves in 2016 with viral hit Broccoli, followed by a solid R&B record. After beefing with Drake, who questionably ripped off DRAM’s song Cha Cha for Hotline Bling, he disappeared for years, only to pop back up with the cheekily titled album What Had Happened Was. It’s another solid R&B album, highlighted by the psychedelic earworm WHAM.
- Drake, a messy bitch who lives for drama, still isn’t over it, taking another shot at DRAM on the already infamous Backoutside Boyz from the aforementioned new album: “tried to bring the dram’ to me / he ain’t know how we cha cha slide”. You’re in good company, Dram, considering he took shots at Megan, Ice Spice, and many others on the same album
There’s similarities in the cord progression, but is Hotline Bling a rip off? Debatable. Judge for yourself!
- Speaking of pot shots, Drake’s targeted harassment of female rappers on Her Loss reads like some sort of reactionary movement to try and push women out of hip hop just as they’ve finally gotten their foot in the door. That said, Her Loss is by far the best of his last three albums — considering it’s a joint release with 21 Savage, he’s probably relieved not to have to come up with all the material himself. “On BS” is an undeniable banger, as Drake and 21 ping pong off one another, trading bars like “Niggas hustling backwards, I help, ballin with the re-up / just popped an adderall I feel like I can lift a tree up”. The song ends with some Parisian Drake fan talking nonsense about wanting the smoke or whatever, feel free to skip that part
- Last Drake observation: he’s done it again! “Maybe I should take that 20 /maybe I should break that 20, do a 10 / maybe I should break that 10, do a 5 / then if it gets live, do a 5 again”. Along with “popped a half a xan, thirteen hours til I land” on Sicko Mode, this paints a picture of a man with a very low tolerance to drugs lmao. Whatever pill he’s referring to, 5mg is a laughably small amount!! It’s not like drugs are cool, but I still wouldn’t be admitting this to the world. Dweeb!
Drake after exactly one half (1/2) of a xan
- Much has been made of Lil Yachty’s new quote unquote psychedelic-rock album Let’s Start Here. While it has a couple of genuinely beautiful standouts (sAy sOMETHINg is excellent), the album overall is hampered by Lil Yachty’s insipid and unfocused lyrics. Even worse still is the direct ripoff of Radiohead’s Pyramid Songon the album’s closing track 😡😡. Still, his album is perfectly listenable, considering the massive list of production credits he got on this thing (including Mac Demarco, MGMT, Magdalena Bay, and other heavy hitters of the genre).
- Some listeners might be rolling their eyes after seeing Welcome to my Island appearing twice on this track list, but that’s really not the case. Caroline Polachek’s original version, released late December of 2022, is a typically sparse and chaste, an 80s pop throw back with a sweet little rap breakdown in the latter third. Charli’s “remix” is another thing entirely, removing Caroline almost entirely from the equation to create a rave style dance cut replete with break beats and Charli on a rapid flow, delivering some of her nastiest sex pot lyrics to date (“I said baby, you can pull up to my landing strip / and if you do it right / then welcome to my island bitch”).
- A crunchy, Ratatat style electric guitar lick paints the beat drop on Kiiara’s What’s With The Roses. While she typically plays the meeker, more love sick role in her songs, she steps into her power on this one, laughing off attempts at reconciliation “this shit is hopeless / what’s with the roses?”
- Laura Les, the trans woman who fronts for the two person band 100 gecs, joins Flo Milli and BIA as one of the biggest haters in modern music. This is the woman who came up with “those arms look so fucking cute, they look like little cigarettes / i bet I could smoke you / i could roast you / and then you’d love it and say you love me then I’ll fucking ghost you” on breakout hit Money Machine. So when she gets vulnerable on the twinkling, piano forward first half of Run Away, it’s no surprise that this gives way to a bruising second half, as Laura half screams, half sobs this bruiser: “say you never wan- wanted this / that’s ok / pussy out / run away. And yeah I understand / just think it’s fucking gay”, nearly choking on her words in the process
- The lyrics on Runaway certainly make this fan worried about the state of Laura’s 2020 marriage 🧐 hope it’s all good!
Laura Les (left) and Gabe Howell, celebrating an anniversary circa 2020
- Lil Durk is absolutely lethal on the Future assisted MAD MAX – following the murder of his friend King Von, Durk can’t escape trolls questioning his street cred for not “sliding” – that is to say, not murdering Von’s killer. For now, he seems to be channeling that ferocity into his music, as well as a sudden conversion to Islam, with lines like “take off a ski mask / pray on the phone with the Imam / tryna get close to Allah”. It’s so good I can forgive his mischaracterizatjon of Mad Max, a character who is not so much trying to “run up” on niggas, as much as just trying to survive the post apocalyptic wastelands.
- Club banger FTCU features a verse from Gangsta Boo, and possibly the last before the Three 6 Mafia legend’s untimely death on New Year’s Day, 2023.
- I enjoy the fiction of the little scene PinkPantheress describes between her and her doctor on Take Me Home. Even if, say, the doctor is referring to your psychiatrist as opposed to your physician, why would you be talking to them about your bills, lol. And just why, exactly, is viral sensation PinkPantheress even short on cash??
- Chance The Rapper’s YAH KNOW includes shouts out to a number of historically oppressed nations, in particular showing love to Haiti. I don’t need to remind my readers that Haiti was the only slave colony to lead successful revolution against their colonizers, gaining independence from France in 1804 under the leadership of the legendary Toussaint L’ouverture. The sad coda to this story is that the nation has been financially starved and devastated by climate change it did not cause, largely due to ridiculous sanctions from European countries which most (rightly) see as some sick sort of ‘revenge’ against Haiti. Boo!!
Former slave Toussaint Louverture lives on as a leader who briefly but successfully organized his country under an egalitarian, socialist regime, though he died 2 years before Haiti became free. He also gets a prominent look in 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
- Little Sims’ follows last year’s critically acclaimed Sometimes I might Be Introvert album with new single Gorilla, a relaxed yet confident victory lap, replete with fanfare from a horn section and four straight minutes of bars from Sims.
An Aside, for Bright Eyes:
Light Pollution tells the (probably) fictional story of a friend of Conor Oberst’s, name checked as John A. Hobson, an early socialist economic thinker who Conor describes as the type of friend who doesn’t have much, but is happy to loan you books and music equipment. Considering that the entire mission of the so-called West for the last century has been the smothering of Marxist and socialist movements, it’s not a pleasant world to live in for someone like John, who eventually enacts the only truly revolutionary act of deliberate suicide. Bright Eyes lyrics can largely be described as more poetic than literal, which makes the vulgar prose of Light Pollution even more stark.
Uncommonly vulgar lyrics like “all the trash / at his feet / the pools of piss / in the street” reflect Conor’s (Bright Eyes) rage, especially at the inability to live with dignity if you don’t have a lot of money. At the moment suicide is cemented in Hobson’s mind — triggered by some repulsive mass display of patriotism, the tempo of the track increases, building to a jubilant yet morbid crescendo as Hobson intentionally, and fatally, wrecks his car.
- Indie rock super group Boygenius are BACK, baby, with a brand new record set to release this year. They previewed several tracks off of it, my favorite being $20, included here. Comprised of Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus, and Julien Baker, their 2018 record feels like a lifetime ago. Phoebe Bridgers (whose solo track So Much Wine closes out this playlist) is significantly more famous now than she was then, so hopefully we see a similar boosting of the careers of her other two, extremely talented counterparts
Pictured: Boygenius. Julien Baker (center) relapsed into opioid addiction after the completion of Boygenius’ first tour. One has to imagine that contributes to the 5 year break between albums.
- The album art comes from Stephen Soderbergh’s excellent 1998 film Out Of Sight, in which George Clooney plays an escaped convict trying to make it to Mexico, and freedom, while dodging Jennifer Lopez’ straight edge detective the whole way.
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